My wife is a Taoist devotee (but I am an Atheist, I don’t believe in God). No she doesn’t pray at home but, once a while, she’ll go to a temple to recharge her faith. Her usual request to the deities are usually for health, safety and happiness for the family. Maybe in between the requests, a blessing for our daughter to have a better life. Her favorite temple? Goddess of Mercy temple (GoMt) at Pitt Street, Penang.

I haven’t been to that place for ages. Must be close to 7 years. The last time I went there, was when my mom died. I was there to say some prayers out of filial obligations… until last week, when my wife wanted me to accompany her to the temple with our daughter, Regine. I obliged… because I missed the place. But that day turned out to be one of the saddest day of my life – to discover that the GoMt I knew is no longer there. It has changed into something different.

You see, GoMt is a very old temple. It was built in the 1700’s. My grandparents grew up praying in it, my mom grew up praying in it, and I grew up praying in it (that was before I decided to be a freethinker). There were pics of our family that stretched over a couple of generations taken inside that temple. That place had remained the same through the years. It was smoky, everything was dark in color from the years of incense burning. It was always crowded and the temple was a din of devotees going about their business. One would not come out of that temple without tears as it was smoky as the clouds in heaven (I can’t say ‘hell’). It was beautiful in its own way. As a kid, I used to gawk at its giant Taoist giant deity figures adorning the sticky walls, marveled at its intricate pillars, curious over the 3 little ‘white tigers’ at the end of the middle courtyard, and amazed by the ever effervescent figure of Guanyin herself. I was even there during the 60 year-once festival that contributed to the infamous Penang jetty tragedy in 1988. Brought back a lot of memories.

So what happened to the place? It was repainted with red and gold. Guanyin figure now has a tacky gold plated face. There’s no more smell of incense inside the temple because it’s prohibited now (HELLO!? It’s a temple!). Devotees are required to light their incense sticks at the al-fresco section of the temple, in an unflattering rectangular aluminum (or chrome plated) censer that resembled a giant kitty litter (instead of the original round brass type). Inside, it was all quiet like an abandoned place. There wasn’t anyone doing any prayers there that day (which was odd to me), and there were no people getting their fortunes checked. There were no kids requesting for divine blessing for their education. There were no housewives smacking miniature evil paper men with their platform shoes to turn their luck around. I went around to check the 3 little nasty ‘white tigers’ – there were no pork lard in their pet bowl. Even the stalls that sells the praying stuff were mostly abandoned (it used to be busy like a morning market). The place is now like one of those museums that has no life in it. I’ve never seen GoMt so quiet and sad before. Fucking hell. What the fuck happened to my beloved GoMt!?

I left the place feeling really sad. I knew it will not be long before some jackass decided to put up some LED deco and LCD animations in that temple – like some of those tacky Taiwanese Taoist temple. I wanted to savor the place that day to relive my old childhood moments – the time when I got lugged along by my late mother and late grandmother listening to Sam Hui in her junk car… but I was apparently, too late. GoMt is fucking gone now, along with my mom, grandma and childhood (my wife told me it has been like this for a few years already… I was a few years too late apparently…)

If you’ve been following this blog closely (which I suspect you haven’t been), you’d have known about some blockhead contract engineer in my team who goes by the moniker ‘Hafiz’ in this blog (not his real name of course). He’s as dumb as a rock, and he never ceases to amaze me with bloopers after bloopers (you can read about one of the events here if you missed it).

Seeing that he’s posing more harm than good to the department, his contract was not renewed and he was asked to leave the team. But for some unfathomable reasons and a twist of extremely good luck, he managed to convince a sucker from another department to hire him and landed himself a sweet permanent position in Company T. Good for him. His last day at our team was last week, we bade him a good riddance farewell and sent this wrecking ball of a lifeform off to another poor sod’s misery.

But before he left, he was duly reminded to return all the departmental items (standard operating procedure) and because we all worked on trust, none of us checked if he actually did that. Andddddd…. that was a mistake. After he left, I discovered something was missing from the lab that’s very important. For the sake of confidentiality, let’s just assume that it’s a briefcase full of spark plugs. Those shit are expensive so, I had to go after him. After confronting him via Skype, I managed to arrange with that klepto for a meet up to get back the briefcase…

“Hafiz, bring the briefcase. We meet at your building’s lobby, today, 5pm. I will send someone to collect the briefcase. Don’t fuck this up, ok?”
“Sure, I will bring the briefcase. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

Simple, isn’t it? He just needs to show up on the agreed time at the agreed place with the briefcase full of spark plugs and goddamn hand it over to Igor, my trusted friend who is big and strong enough to wrestle a fucking hippo with his bare hands.

Guess what Hafiz did? He showed up WITHOUT the goddamn briefcase. He was standing there at the lobby like a dolt when Igor saw him. Igor then went apeshit,

Igor was a short tempered person so, he grew tired of Hafiz’s shit, fast. Igor did a grapple on Hafiz’s skinny ass arm and made a Armbar legsweep maneuver on him, onto the lobby floor. Writhing in pain, Hafiz wriggled like he’s trying to embarrass himself with a lame breakdance move. Then Igor flipped Hafiz facedown and gave him a Stepover armlock camel clutch, which made Hafiz squealed in agony like he’s getting a colonoscopy with a forklift chain. Then Igor picked him up like a ragdoll and gave him a 360 piledriver onto a teak coffee table’s edge, sending splinters all over the fucking floor, cracking his skull open like a Japanese sea urchin delicacy. Then Igor picked up Hafiz’s brain, which is about the size of a rat’s left testicle, and ate it.

In an alternate universe, Hafiz asked Igor to wait at the lobby, and disappeared into the building to retrieve the briefcase – because he only remembered about the meet and forgot about the fucking briefcase. *facepalm*

This weblog is 14 years old. To put into perspective as to how long 14 years is:
– 14 years ago, our CPUs rocked at 130 micron. Today we’re at the advent of 10 micron or less…
– 14 years is enough to build the Penang Bridge, from the idea of conception up until the goddamn bridge is completed…
– it’s right about the time it takes to completely construct China’s Forbidden City…
– it’s longer than the time taken to release all the original Star Trek film series…
– 14 years ago, your phones still had lots of buttons…
– having said that, this blog actually existed 1 lifetime (7 years) prior Samsung’s successful Galaxy S series product line (started in 2010)…
– it’s long enough for you to COMPLETELY follow all seasons of The Sopranos + Breaking Bad tv series, week by week including the breaks…
– the age of this weblog is longer than whatever fucking career for most people born in the mid 80’s have today…
– if you conceived your kid about the time this weblog started, then your kid now has enough pubic hair to clog the shower drainhole…
– 14 years is about the span of The Jackson 5’s entire career, which saw the emergence of Michael Jackson and his oddities…
– it’s about twice the time taken for Cassini space probe to reach planet Saturn…
– it’s enough time to complete the construction for the majority of the Pyramid of Giza…
– the existence of this weblog is longer than the prison sentence for most political dissidents in Malaysia…
– it’s more than enough to complete your secondary school education with enough time wait for your uni reply…
– it’s longer than the French Revolution. FR only took 10 odd years to complete…
– it’s older than Facebook!